In structure and in function, the Japanese high school entrance examination--as exemplified by data from Chiba prefecture in 1986--survives as a prewar hierarchical cultural pattern. Postwar American occupation reforms offered "democratic education" in the form of a single-track system with 9 years of compulsory schooling; such a system, ideally, increases educational opportunities. In practice, however, entrance examinations make the system function in the same fashion as the prewar multitrack system. Examinations stratify high school populations into hierarchies; in Chiba, the implicit distinction between those of higher and lower quality is explicitly seen in quantitative ranking based upon examination scores. Examinations promote prefectural level stratification because administrators use the entrance examination to organize secondary education. Educators follow prefectural policy--their careers depend upon students' examination success. The high school entrance examination thus determines emphasis of a particular junior high school on the one hand, and a stratified senior high school population on the other. Education is functionally integrated at the secondary level in that everyone associated with education in the prefecture derives success from performance in relation to the entrance examinations. It is agreed that the purpose of education is to prepare the student to pass the entrance examination. Consensus about this measure of success allows education to function without dissonance. Ideology is accordingly harmonious with a system that integrates American educational structure into the traditional Japanese cultural context. Data from schools are presented; six reference pages conclude the report. (CJH)